


Endless

by SouthernBird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, Gift Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmare, Shiro went through a lot okay, Short One Shot, shance, vague sexual content, waxing poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9100828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird
Summary: There is sky and there is ocean and it creates an endless horizon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first Voltron fic that I wrote back in the summer for merilindir on tumblr! Please enjoy! (Additional notes at the end.)

There has always been a sight that Shiro recalls on his darkest moments; with the feeling of an ocean breeze from a memory so long ago, it’s almost too gone to bear. It was when the sweat cooled on his brow after this latest opponent in the ring fell hard and lifeless, when he was dragged back to his cell until the next battle, there would just be a flicker of waning light and there, he could barely see it. Just barely, he thought, just a minor chord that struck him so hard, but it was always the same every time with the sky of endless clouds kissing upon a never-ending sea, creating a horizon that had no true end.

However, as with trauma and blood, he almost loses it, almost let it slip from his helpless grasp. 

It’s with a firm handshake that the memory collides with Shiro once again, finding the fragments in blue eyes so depthless that there is no salvation to surface again. For an infinitesimal second, there’s seafoam and tide pools in those eyes, oceans upon seas that collide and makes the sky yearn. He hates his new metal appendage, hates how he can’t feel the _softness_ of warm skin, soak in the warmth that hand undoubtedly emits. The moment, it flees, and there’s more important tasks at hand. The once pilot is now a leader with a team—a pride—he cannot let down.

But in _sleep_ , the blues, they haunt him. The clouds threaten to leave the sky and find another warm day because if anything, Shiro is no longer a whole sky, a whole being. He’s now a desperate man, he realizes, fighting for a horizon that he almost weakly admits he cannot keep. For the sake of all existence, he chases towards the end, yelling, begging even, for something to _stay._ Then, against his own subconscious, the _memories_ start, the weight of a sword in his hand, the look on his friend’s face as he raised it—as he raised it on his next opponent before swiping _downward_.

But it’s the blurs and ripples that wake him in the starlit darkness, and Shiro finds himself on his side, seeking the warmth he’s curled along.

In these calmer times, when Shiro lays in his temporary—he hopes, he _prays_ —bed and stares out the window into the vastness of nebulas and stardust, he realizes then, this struggle too is _endless._

There’s then a _shift_ , something that drags him back into his own head again, and it’s cloud and it’s waves interweaving their fingers, forming that horizon, the space between Lance’s and his fingers that is there and yet not at all.

“What’s up?” comes the softest of murmurs, the kindest of waves brushing along the shoreline. Shiro’s heart flutters and it’s music against the wind in his ears, the pounding of his own blood. Lance is already trying to turn and Shiro is reluctant to let him, but water is a strong force when reckoned with, and Lance… Shiro is positive that these moments here in bed together when Lance is soft and quiet are his favorites.

It’s with a tense sigh that the older paladin replies with “nothing,” but it’s already evident that the synapses are working in Lance’s mind. “Tell me? Have a nightmare?” he chuckles tiredly, “want me to check for monsters under the bed?”

Snorting at the inquiry, Shiro kisses along Lance’s temple. He’s gruff in return to Lance’s sudden yawn, “pretty sure I can handle any alien monster that hiding under the bed.”

Lance turns fully then, nuzzling up against the strong jawline and scratching at just the lightest trace of stubble that Shiro intends to shave in the morning. The space between them is along spans of their bodies once again, and honestly, Shiro doesn’t feel nearly as complete until Lance presses so fully against him; infinity with this is simply an existence he prefers here.

“You’re evading. You do that a lot after a nightmare.”

“Not evading,” the elder remarks, wrapping his arms fully around a smaller back—and how is Lance so small sometimes for being so tall and hotheaded, Shiro ponders. If it were any different, though, it wouldn’t be like that breathtaking realization in a youth’s eyes when the sky cradles the sea, holds it so dear and so close. This is _perfect._

Shiro just lets himself bask, so thankful, graciously thankful that Lance simply hums before their eyes meet and whatever divine existence that will listen to Shiro will just have to listen because he’s lost again, those gorgeous blues that swirl in currents,  that ethereal glow in the interstellar mediums outside the window.  Save him, someone, save him because he’s going to drown, Takashi Shirogane is going to drown and love every damn minute of it as the water and the foam fills his lungs and leaves him speechless for time unseen.

“Shiro? You’re staring off into space again. Ha, get it? Staring. Into space. It’s outside—Shiro?”

The awful joke brings a small hint of a smile to Shiro’s features before he presses their foreheads together, closing that distance again so they form their own special enclosure, the spaces unknown between them lost frontier. With a sky so boundless and an ocean so fathomless, Shiro guesses there’s just no saving them from this, nothing else to keep them from floating here in their own felicity.

Lance is almost pensive before he smiles, leaning up to for tender eskimo kisses—they haven’t done much in the ways of intimacy. Kisses are fleeting throughout the castle at times, but here, in the sanctuary of stars and sheets, there’s so rush, not fervency that drives them simply because of the fears that play on the next mission. Instead, they bask and soak up every soft breath, every gentle kiss, every kind caress. Just like the hand cupping the elder’s cheek and the pad of a thumb rubbing along the peak of his cheekbone; calm is present, filling the silence with its own hum.

Tonight, however, is not the same. The rush, it isn’t there, but something else is; almost an instance of understanding of what lies there beneath the sheets and what could be and will be.

Lips find Shiro’s in a matter of a breath, kisses sweet despite the bit of staleness in the taste when Shiro dips his tongue in deep into that pretty mouth. His fingers start to travel to explore the planes of curves and edges of Lance’s body as if they’re a small craft out to chart the seas with only a little paper map. His instinct is his compass, discovering the little secret coves that make Lance shudder and moan against him. Shiro’s heart speeds up, drums in his chest because _he’s_ making his blue paladin sound like that, _he’s_ the one that Lance is asking for when Shiro turns them under Lance’s direction, hands guiding him to fill in the space above him.

Shiro hasn’t… enjoyed another body sexually in a long time, if he remembers correctly; his time as a captive warrior still leads him to believe there are some things better left forgotten.

Lance, though, _Lance_ is beneath him, breathless as he begs and this all is almost as natural as flying to Shiro. Everything is as Shiro fantasized on the nights when Lance fell into the abyss of dreams before him, the kisses still warm and tender, the touches still loving and soothing. Fingertips dig into the elder’s shoulders and back, finding skin that has been untouched for what seems like millennia all while Shiro groans for the body beneath him, kissing and marking along the shores of Lance’s torso and legs. He wants everyone to know what they’ve done, a small voice purrs, he wants any person, human or alien, to see Lance and go, no, that’s _taken._ It’s dark and it’s possessive, something Shiro knows is dangerous; nonetheless Lance has not once argued. So it shall be.

When Shiro finally comes up like the backrush from the shore, there’s nothing but a beautiful, glowing being laying on his sheets, deep blues never once looking away from the other’s form. Mouth watering for more, the kisses become abundant, slickened fingers prodding and stretching before it’s another pause and _sky_ and _water_ form one existence.

Both paladins stop and gaze at each other for a moment, breath hitching at the sight of the other that’s with him, their other _half_ before they cannot shake it, cannot stop it, moving together in a languid, yet heated dance that keeps them so close, horizons no longer a thought but a truth. It’s everything all at once and more, reflecting spasms of starbursts behind their eyes and ocean spray words on their lips. The heat, the friction, it builds and climbs until Lance is arching, whispering, “ _love you, Shiro,_ ” and this everything that is reaches its zenith before crumbling into two sweaty bodies clinging to each other.

Wonderment fills Shiro’s senses as he cradles this beautiful creature close to him, their chests pressed so close, they can feel the thrumming beats of the other’s heart against their own. Relishing another long kiss once their breaths slow and catch, the ambiance creates a sense of something sempiternal. It’s almost intimidating, how deeply Lance’s claws have dug into Shiro’s heart, but he will not fight them; Shiro is nothing but an eager victim.

For time indescribable, the two lay in silence, hands trailing along skin as if it is the most precious in the vastness of the universe. _It is_. Lips trail so deftly over his scar before being replacing by fingertips, Shiro leaning to kiss and lick along Lance’s collarbone as thanks, the salt of the darker skin almost addictive. _Ocean,_ Lance’s very existence is ocean so forgiving yet terrifying, loving as it still reaches for its sky, Shiro not having any thoughts to ease away.

When exhaustion has finally overtaken, settling into their bones so deep Lance cannot fend off sleep, Shiro manages stay awake long enough to watch him for a few moments longer. His fingers, both natural and artificial, trail secret love letters into his lover’s skin while the cosmos drift along outside in gaseous swirls of blue and purple admist the sea of stars.

 

_(And years later, when the galaxies are no longer under the threat of a vicious empire and all is safe once more, Shiro will take Lance to that very spot where he saw the sky kiss the ocean, forming nothing more than an endless horizon.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Story time: Way back when, I had a sleep deprived Shance revelation at one in the morning about Shiro is the sky and Lance is the ocean and they make an endless horizon. I posted this on Twitter, and here we are.


End file.
